THE BIRTH OF THE WESTERN MOVIE

In 1894 the fledgling Edison Company produced a short film in which Buffalo Bill gave an exhibition of his shooting and in 1902 they made another three one reel films centering on the showman and his wild west show.

In 1903 Edwin S. Porter demonstrated the storytelling capabilities of film with his The Great Train Robbery. The film shocked audiences. Twelve minutes long, it is considered a milestone in film history and invented a number of techniques that would become part of the language of film. Actor Max Aronson later changed his name to W.M Anderson and became the world's first continuing western movie character as Bronco Billy.

In 1904 the Edison Company filmed the one reeler, Brush between Cowboys and Indians on location in Oklahoma. And the western had truly arrived. Edwin Porter, now a superstar director after the success of The Great Train Robbery, directed Daniel Boone for the Edison company.

During this period New York and New Jersey were the centres of film making in the United States but it was Oklahoma where the western was taking its formative steps. In particular the 101 Ranch, owned by G. W. Miller, which encompassed 110,000 acres, with its own trains, telephone service, daily mail delivery, churches, schools became a prime location for the early western filmmakers. In 1905 the ranch staged a buffalo chase which attracted 65,000 visitors - perhaps most of these had come to see the show's star Geronimo. It was during this show that the famous photograph of the Apache leader was taken - seated at the wheel of an automobile and wearing a top hat. In 1908 the Miller took his own 101 Wild West show on tour and then after returning from the tour the businessman, together with his two sons, entered the world of motion pictures. The Wolf Hunt and Round up in Oklahoma was filmed on their extensive grounds.

Buffalo Bill was exploring this new medium when in 1910 he starred in The Life of Buffalo Bill for the Pawnee Bill Pictures company. This was one of the earliest examples of a three reeler - a film lasting for almost thirty minutes.

Another True West figure who took to film was Emmett Dalton who after being pardoned for his part in the 1892 Coffeyville, Kansas hold up of two banks produced and starred in 1912's three reeler, The Last Stand of the Dalton Boys. The fact the the one time outlaw presented himself as a good man forced into crime by circumstances so incensed New Jersey film maker, Bill Tilghman that in 1915 he made his own account of The Dalton Boys in the six reeler The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws.

The film industry was, at the time bursting with innovation and in 1910 David W. Griffith selected California as a location for shooting westerns for Biograph. Some remarkable oaters were filmed in the state during these years including the iconic Custer's Last Flight which starred Francis Ford, brother of John Ford who would later become perhaps the world's most famous western director, as the doomed General.

In 1916 motion pictures were becoming so successful than an aging Wyatt Earp and whilst exploring the possibility of making a film of his own experiences, he took part in a crowd scene for Triangle Film's The Half Breed which starred Douglas Fairbanks. When the lawman died in 1929 two of the pallbearers at his funeral were westerns stars William S. Hart and Tom Mix.

It was the 1920's that saw the first truly epic westerns - The Covered Wagon (1923), The Iron Horse (1924), Sundown (1924) and by this time the western was firmly established in film history. Over the coming decades the genre would become known throughout the world but it was during the formative years that the distinction between fact and fiction was most blurred when real life western characters cropped up on the screen.

It's worth seeking out some of these silent westerns to see how the genre developed the themes and styles that remain to the present day. The Great Train Robbery. perhaps the most important of the early westerns, can be downloaded legally from archive.org and this nine minute epic is embedded in it's entirety below. Click the movie for full screen and enjoy this landmark in western cinema.
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